The Harmony team has proposed halting its L1 blockchain, while Router Protocol and the Chilean cryptocurrency exchange Orionx have revealed their plans to cease operations.
Harmony Proposes Transitioning ONE to Ethereum
On September 6, Harmony developers introduced a proposal to shut down the network established in 2019, citing "threats from state-sponsored hackers and AI agents" as the primary reason.
The proposal suggests that the team will freeze ONE balances at the last block and issue ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. The new tokens will be automatically distributed to the same addresses, while the total supply and issuance rate of ONE are expected to remain unchanged.
However, applications, liquidity pools, and multi-sig wallets will not be transferable. Users have been urged to withdraw their funds from smart contracts by September 10.
From that date, validators—operators who maintain the blockchain—are advised to start shutting down nodes. A compensation fund of $1.372 million will be established for participants who meet the transition conditions and join the governance of the new project initiative, with payouts planned over four quarters.
The future direction of Harmony is linked to the creation and development of AI-generated videos, with new releases of ONE proposed to support this area.
This plan is currently non-binding and subject to change, and the developers have not specified the date of the last block.
Following the announcement, the price of ONE dropped by nearly 3%, reaching $0.007.
Hourly chart of ONE/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.Router Protocol to Shut Down by September 30
The Router Protocol team announced it will completely cease operations after more than four years of developing infrastructure for cross-blockchain transfers.
According to the developers, the revenue from these operations no longer covers expenses. They attributed this to declining fees, a concentration of activity in a limited number of networks, and capital flight from Web3 to AI.
Over the past year, Router sought ways to continue operations, exploring commercial agreements, technology licensing, and project sales. However, these negotiations did not yield results sufficient to sustain the team.
By September 30, the protocol will fully shut down. As part of the closure, developers will burn 303,333,198 ROUTE from the treasury and coordinate with centralized exchanges for the delisting of the token.
ROUTE holders are advised to monitor notifications from their trading platforms, as each will establish its own timelines for ending trading and withdrawals.
The team also plans to open-source some of its developments. New programs related to ROUTE will not be launched.
In the last 24 hours, the token's price surged by 19%.
Hourly chart of ROUTE/USDT on Gate. Source: TradingView.Orionx Begins Closure Following Discrepancy Discovery
On September 3, Orionx announced the commencement of its final closure. An audit revealed transfers of client assets exceeding $7 million to wallets not controlled by the exchange.
The investigation uncovered discrepancies between internal records and actual balances of Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Polygon. Users' accounts displayed more cryptocurrency than what was found on the exchange's addresses, as per documents reviewed by La Tercera.
Withdrawals have been suspended. Orionx aims to return as much of the assets as possible to clients, but full reimbursement is not guaranteed at this time.
On September 2, the company filed criminal charges against co-founders and former executives Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz. Orionx claims they had access to cryptocurrency storage systems and were involved in operations leading to the discrepancy.
Zibert and Díaz have denied the allegations, as reported by La Cuarta. In a letter to clients, they stated they did not act against users' interests, and the reasons for the discrepancies remain undetermined.
In June 2025, an investment round for Orionx was led by Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin.
It is worth noting that in July of this year, the Bitcoin exchange BitMart announced its closure, followed by a similar decision from the trading platform BitMEX.